


Adoptions of the Heart

by Calacious



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Fluff, Gen, Spoilers, father/son feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 12:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15412896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: Bruce asks Dick for a favor.





	Adoptions of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suerum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suerum/gifts).



> Written for Sue's birthday, day #4. I know this is short, but I hope that you like the way that I interpreted the prompt that you gave me.
> 
> There's a spoiler in this.

"Bruce, I can't," Dick says, pushing the paperwork back toward his father in all but name. "I'm not the right person for this."

"Dick, you're the only person for this," Bruce says, blue eyes boring into Dick's, holding his gaze in a way that no one else can, making Dick feel eight years old again. 

He squirms in his seat, and then sits up straighter. He's not the eight year old he used to be. He's a grown man now. He no longer cowers under the shadow of the bat, the shadow of his father. 

"Have you talked this over with Damian?" he asks. 

Bruce purses his lips and nods. "At length," he says, voice dry.

Dick smiles at that, knowing that Damian had more than likely used every language he knew to curse out his father. The boy is, while not quite the demon child that Jason deems him, a broody, angst-ridden teenager and not afraid to lash out at his father, at any of them. 

"And?" Dick asks, hating that he has to drag these things out of Bruce. It's exhausting.

"He's amenable to it," Bruce says, lips thinned in a way that means he's smiling. 

"Let me guess," Dick says, picking at a piece of invisible lint on his jeans. "Damian believes himself above needing a guardian."

Bruce inclines his head, and it's then that Dick notices the wrinkles around his mentor's, his father's, eyes. He's never thought of Bruce as old before, not since he was a naïve kid anyway. No, he corrects himself, he's never thought of Bruce as vulnerable before. Bruce rarely lets his guard down like this, even with those he considers family. It's unnerving. 

"Please say, yes, Dick," Bruce says, voice suddenly tired, strained in a way that it has never been before. 

Before he realizes what he's doing, before he can recall the actions, he's reaching for the paperwork, giving it a quick once over (it's been drilled into him by the very man sitting across from him not to sign anything without reading through it first), and stops, heart skipping a beat as he mouths the words of a clause that stands out to him, brow wrinkling as the weight of it hits him. It can't be right, Bruce can't mean to make Dick's guardianship of Damian a full adoption.

"You were so good with him when I was unavoidably detained," Bruce says, brushing over the months of agony his 'death' had caused the family as though it had been nothing but a mere inconvenience. As though it hadn't torn Dick's heart out. 

"I didn't have a choice then," Dick says, voice hard with emotion that he dare not express in front of Bruce. It will only lead to a fight, and he doesn't want that, not with guardianship papers sitting in front of him and the wholehearted trust that this implies. 

"I'm giving you the choice now," Bruce says. 

Dick wants to argue that Bruce isn't really giving him a choice, but the words get stuck in his throat when he glances up and sees a look of raw, naked love in the eyes of the man who'd taken him in when he'd been eight. The man who tensed at hugs, and whose idea of a smile was a slight upturn of the lips (unless he was putting on a show) was now looking at Dick with his feelings unchecked. The unguarded look throws Dick for a loop, and, though he doesn't want to think of Bruce dying, of becoming Damian's guardian under those circumstances, he signs the papers before he really knows what he's doing. 

"Thank you, son," Bruce says, the term of endearment sounds like a benediction, and Dick hates how it makes his heart stutter in his chest.

"He loves you more than any of us," Bruce says. 

Dick shakes his head, opens his mouth to contradict his guardian, but Bruce holds a hand up. "He does, and I know that you'll show him how to love as openly and freely as you do."

Dick laughs at that, and shakes his head. Damian is more like his father than Bruce cares to admit. 

"Well, maybe almost as openly and freely as you do," Bruce amends, lips quirked. "You are the best of us all, Dick," he says. "You're what he needs."

"What he needs is his father," Dick says, though his words lack any of the heat they might have held earlier, had he not seen that look in Bruce's eyes. 

"And I'll be here for him for as long as I can," Bruce promises. "For you, too, son."

Coming from Bruce, it's a confession of love, and Dick smiles at the father that he'd adopted into his heart years ago. He's hard to love at times, but Dick wouldn't have him any other way. Dick has a sneaking suspicion that Bruce finds him to be just as prickly as well.

"I'll hold you to that," Dick says.

"I don't doubt that for a moment," Bruce says, accepting the paper that Dick passes back to him, and offering Dick one of his rare, genuine, no holds barred smiles. 

It's enough to draw a smile from Dick, and before Bruce can stop him, he rounds the desk and pulls the man into his arms, hugging him like he used to when he was just a kid. It feels good when Bruce hugs him back.

 


End file.
